


In Sickness and in Health

by Luraia



Series: Jack/Jane and the Banks Family Head-canon [3]
Category: Mary Poppins (Movies)
Genre: Cuddles, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Sick Jack, Sickfic, sick Jane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-26 16:52:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17749766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luraia/pseuds/Luraia
Summary: Jane has a cold.  Jack is worried.  Michael is exasperated.  And Ellen is getting ready to pull out the rope.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Despite the suggestive title, Jane and Jack are not yet married in this fic. Also, the three chapters thing is a guess; it will have at least one more that is already partially written, but this is a WIP so who knows how long it will end up. It might only be two. It might be ten. We'll see.
> 
> Incidentally, research into disease in the early 1900’s is fascinating and John Snow is awesome (like Sherlock Holmes, but for disease. And…you know…not literary). And almost all the research I did is almost entirely irrelevant to this chapter but, well, for future chapters/illnesses I'm set.

The first inkling anyone had that something might be wrong was when Jack said, “Will this horrible rain never end?”

This was a sentiment expressed by almost all of the leeries at some time or another that week (In fact, they were more likely to say something like ‘I’ve had a French egg of this blasted pleasure’ but they _meant_ ‘I’ve had enough of this horrible rain’).  It had been raining almost non-stop for eight days, after all.  But now it was _Jack_ saying it.

“Oh no!” said Angus promptly, “Our Jackie boy is down.  He must be going whaling!”  The suggestion that Jack must be sick wasn’t said seriously, and everyone laughed in response.  Even Jack grinned a bit sheepishly; he knew himself that he usually enjoyed a bit of rain just as much as a bit of sunshine…or at least didn’t mind it.  In fact, hearing Jack complain about _anything_ was so rare that the few occasions when he’d actually lost his temper were now the stuff of legends.  And even then, it was more likely to be about an injustice to his friends than anything to do with himself.

“Knock it off,” said Jack, but good naturedly, while he ducked Angus’s hand as his friend jokingly tried to check Jack’s temperature.  Jack succeeded in ducking Angus, but then got dragged closer to the fire by two other leeries and a mug of something warm was shoved into his hands.  “I’m not going whaling,” he explained, though he did accept the drink.  “Jane is.  And this pleasure and pain isn’t helping.”

Then of course the teasing turned to Jane.  Not mockingly, but it was hard not to tease their mate a bit when he was so clearly smitten.  They were actually gentler with him than with each other; at any rate they avoided lewder commentary.  This was out of a mixture of feeling like they were corrupting a kitten when they made suggestions around Jack (a mistaken feeling; Jack was neither a child nor nearly as innocent as his persona suggested) and experience that said disrespecting someone Jack cared for was asking for trouble.  Jack _defended_ his friends, even from his other friends.  So they teased him about how seldom they saw him now that he had a real lady to go out with, and the usual ‘and what does a girl like that want with a guy like you’ that no one really meant, and then Jack mentioned seeing Freddie talking to a young flower seller which neatly took the attention off himself, and after that talk turned to a story Bill had about a lake he’d mistaken for a puddle, and a nice evening was had by all.

It was when Jack begged off early that Angus remembered the joke at the start of the evening, and looked more closely at his friend.  Jack somehow looked a bit pale and a bit flushed at the same time, but then, that could have been from sitting so close to the fire.  And he had coughed a few times, but then, there wasn’t a man among them who didn’t have a bit of a cold by that point.  Constant close quarters mixed with constant rain were not a good recipe for health.  Jack leaving early wasn’t too unusual either; they all had to get up early and lately Jack was always off to meet Jane or some other member of the Banks family.  It was late for visiting though, and Jack had said himself that Jane was ill.

“Off already?” Angus said, trying to study Jack without looking like he was studying him.

“Bit tired,” Jack answered, his voice cheerful enough that he still sounded like his usual self, even if his voice was slightly hoarse.  He didn’t look overly tired; there was still a spring in his step and his eyes were bright.

In the end, Angus dismissed his worries and went back to enjoying the evening.

The next day they had a bit of break in the weather, though everything remained gray and damp and the air was chilly.  At least they had dry clothes for once as they moved through the early morning to turn down the lamps.

Angus saw Jack briefly, for their routes converged, and he seemed fine; probably better than Angus himself who had stayed out rather later than he should have.  Jack was still coughing, but then, Angus himself had a runny nose and an annoying sneeze that seemed to come on just whenever he was halfway up his ladder.

“Meet up after?” Angus has asked in the place of a greeting.

“Can’t,” said Jack.  Despite his growing friendship with Jane, and the Banks family, and his tendency to find odd jobs to do between leerie shifts, it was actually rather unusual for Jack to turn down meeting with his old friends at all.  Angus must have looked a bit surprised by Jack’s abrupt answer, because he quickly expanded to say, “Jane is still whaling.”  And he looked worried, which was a foreign expression for Jack’s face.

“That bad?” asked Angus, who had supposed it was just the same sort of cold that had been going around.

“ _She_ insists it’s just a cold,” Jack answered, “But then she doesn’t want the children to visit, in case it’s catching, and she told me it would be better to stay away, as if I _would_ , and anyway, who is there to take care of her if she’s sending everyone away?”  Then, in a lower, confiding sort of tone he said, “I think she’s scared.  After how her parents died.”

And just then wasn’t the time for that kind of conversation, so that had been the end of it.  Angus had gone one direction and Jack in the other.  Angus had been vaguely relieved that Jack himself wasn’t ill, and hoped with all his heart that Jack’s young lady would soon be well too.  He didn’t want to imagine how it would hit Jack if that proved not to be the case.  Then Angus sneezed again and almost fell of his ladder and thought perhaps he should worry more about himself and getting rid of his horrid, miserable cold.  And leeries aren’t the sort to hold onto life’s worries, so for the most part, he enjoyed the lack of rain and whistled as he went about his job.

Something did niggle at Angus for the longest time after.  It took him a while to figure out what he’d noticed.  Jack hadn’t been singing, nor whistling, nor even humming.  Jack had once confessed to him that one of his favorite things about his job was that he could sing while he plied his trade.

“And just imagine what sort of world we’d live in if everyone sang as they worked.”

Angus had laughed, and so had Jack, but Jack hadn’t really been joking; Angus could tell.  And this morning he had been silent.  Either Jack was even more worried than he had let on, or he hadn’t felt up to singing.

Either way, there wasn’t much Angus could do about it.  He wasn’t Jack’s mum.

Jack, meanwhile, went silently through his route as quickly as bad roads and a pounding head would allow.  In fact, despite hurrying, he was actually slower than was normal for him.  He generally had a good rhythm and could sail through his route, knowing which lamps were tricky and which just needed a touch and where to swerve to avoid loose cobblestones and the like.  Trying to rush threw him off, and the fact he’d awakened that morning with a mild but tenacious headache, along with the tickle at the back of his throat, had not helped.

Between the tickle in his throat, the aching head, and the way he was slightly out of breath (from trying to hurry, he thought), he had neither the inclination nor the ability to sing that morning.  He himself never even noticed his own silence, for his thoughts were full of Jane, but several people he regularly passed did notice.  A police officer who usually called him a ‘menace on wheels’ or a ‘public nuisance’ instead shouted ‘you see about that cough ‘fore you’ve passed it on to all of London!’ and a somewhat confused vendor found himself having to toss one of his own apples to a small child waiting in line at a soup kitchen.  When he caught another passerby staring he mumbled, ‘Day wouldn’t’ve felt right’ and then pretended it hadn’t happened.

Jack noticed none of these things, only thinking to himself that Jane had looked so unwell the last time he saw her and he hoped Michael had talked her into seeing the doctor and he hoped none of the children did catch her cold…or his cold, and all in all he noticed very little that morning but still managed to do all his lamps.

For once he rolled down Cherry Tree Lane, which was at the very end of his route, without a thought about stopping by number 17, because he was already plotting in his head the shortest route to Jane’s flat.  At any rate, he was so late for all his hurrying that he’d missed the children, who had been forced to walk to school without a leerie for company (and very glum they were about it, with just a smidgeon of worry because Jack was almost _never_ late).

And of course Michael should also have been out the door already too, which only left Ellen (and normally, he’d be quite happy to stop by just for her; she had the best stories about the family and she tended to hand out tea and toast or whatever was left of breakfast), but Jack’s mind was still full of Jane.  So Jack finished the final light and didn’t turn towards number 17 but he did take a moment to rest.  He was still feeling a bit out of breath and he wanted a chance to catch it before he started the journey to see Jane, except instead of catching it he started coughing.  The bout of coughing actually surprised him; he knew perfectly well he’d caught a bit of a cold but up to then it had seemed like a small thing brought on by too much chilly rain.  Somehow, riding his bike around and climbing his ladder hadn’t set him off  too much but resting did.  It was as though the cough had been chasing him all morning and only just had the moment to catch up.

He was beginning to feel a bit light headed from the coughing, in fact, and his head was pounding awfully.  He was just beginning to wonder if he shouldn’t hop on his bike anyway, since exercise must have agreed with him like resting didn’t, when the hand grabbed his shoulder, not roughly, but steadying, and it was only in that moment that Jack noticed he’d begun to lean sideways a bit.

“Jack?” said the voice of the one the hand belonged to, and Jack had a vague notion that this wasn’t actually the first time the person had called his name, like maybe he’d heard it just before but somehow hadn’t noticed well enough to pay attention.

“Michael?  What are you doing home from work?” is what Jack didn’t say, because all he got out was ‘Michael’ before the coughing started again.  After it passed (and Michael’s hand was still on his shoulder, warm and solid) and the world stopped tilting under his feet, Jack didn’t dare try again, for he rather thought talking was what had brought it on in the first place.

“You’re as bad as Jane,” said Michael, his voice fond and a bit exasperated, and then, “Well come on, then.”  And Jack was just befuddled enough to follow meekly as he was tugged along.  He wasn’t entirely sure how Michael managed it, but somehow Michael had Jack’s bike and was pushing it awkwardly with one hand while the other was kept at Jack’s back, and the next thing Jack knew he was sitting in Michael’s kitchen with a mug of hot tea warming his fingers and a thermometer stuffed in his mouth.

“I’m not that sick,” is what he failed to say, mostly because of the thermometer but also because he could feel that tickle in the back of his throat getting worse and nothing sounds more ridiculous than trying to say you’re not sick while coughing.

Michael had left, saying something like, “I’ll just tell him he has another one,” which would have left Jack baffled except the world felt a bit unreal around the edges and it was hard to work up to the level of curiosity that is needed to be truly baffled.  Ellen was the one who had produced the thermometer and tea.

“And I suppose you’ve been out in the weather all week, too,” she scolded, just as though it had been his choice and not his job.  “As bad as Jane, and her SPRUCE.”

And Jack rather liked to be compared to Jane, but didn’t really appreciate that Ellen was implying Jane’s work was a bad thing.  And he gave her a grumpy sort of look that completely failed to have the desired effect, seeing as he looked about as fierce as a kitten at that moment.

In the end, the cough won, but Ellen snatched the thermometer just in time, then tutted over the reading.

“As I thought,” she said while Jack finally got his first sip of his tea.  “100.4 degrees.”  The way she pronounced it, one would think it had said 104, but Jack hadn’t actually expected it to be any higher than 99, at most.  Sure he had a bit of a cough (soothed by the tea for the moment) and a headache, but a fever?

And then Michael was back with another man that Jack didn’t know, but he could guess his profession from his bag and clothing.  But why did Michael have a doctor about the house?  Surely not on the off chance Jack pedaled by looking a bit peaky?

“Who’s sick?” Jack asked, his eyes roving to Michael (who should have been at work, but otherwise looked perfectly fine) and then to Ellen, who looked as spry and active as ever as she bustled about the kitchen.  “The children?”

“The children are at school,” Michael answered.  “Georgie has a bit of a cold, but no fever, and I imagine we’ll all get it in the end.”

“Then who’s sick?” Jack repeated, before breaking down coughing again.  He tried to stop it with the tea, only to almost choke, and Ellen was kind enough to pat him enthusiastically on the back.  Michael only just saved the mug.

“You are, it would seem,” the doctor said.

“’s just a cold,” Jack mumbled when he could.

“Perhaps,” the doctor agreed, much to Jack’s surprise and Ellen’s disapproval.  Then the doctor gave him a stern look.  “But that doesn’t mean it should be ignored.  We don’t want it to develop into something worse, now do we?”

And then he shooed Ellen out of the room, under the principle that she is a woman and Jack is a man and demanded that Jack remove his shirt.  Feeling just the slightest bit outnumbered (and the slightest bit just out of it), Jack meekly did what he was told and allowed the doctor to examine him.

The end pronouncement was, “Just like the other one.  Plenty of liquids, plenty of bed rest, make sure he takes his medicine, and call me if either of them get any worse.”

If Jack hadn’t been feeling so slow that morning, he probably would have figured out quicker who the ‘other one’ must be.  As it was, he was still trying to figure out how it came about that he’d gone from plotting a trip across London to being half pushed up Michael’s stairs while Michael said something about loaning him some clothes to sleep in.

So it wasn’t until a door opened and Jane stuck her head out, doubtless drawn by the commotion, that Jack understood.

“Jack?” said Jane, her voice barely more than a whisper and her face pale and her nose red.  Jack was so surprised that he said the first thing to pop into his head, which was, “But I’m going to see you at your flat.”  Which was followed by a coughing fit.

“I _told_ you you’d catch my cold,” Jane whispered harshly.

“You two deserve each other,” is what Michael said, albeit with a fond sort of smile, which is possibly why he completely ignored all propriety and settled them both in same bed.  In fact, Jack would later realize it was Michael’s own bed, lent first to his sister and then to the two of them under the theory that it was the most remote from the children’s rooms and therefore the quietest.  Of course Michael only succeeded in giving up his room because his sister was too sick to win the argument.

Jack was still not entirely sure how he had gotten there, let alone Jane, but somehow he was now wearing a pair of Michael’s pajamas, propped up next to Jane on a mound of pillows and tucked under warm blankets, a stack of handkerchiefs at the ready and a tray made up with toast and porridge and tea over his lap.

“Is Michael a bit…magic?” he asked Jane.

“Poor Jack,” said Jane, and she would have giggled if she hadn’t been too poorly herself to manage.  Instead of mirthful, it actually came across as a bit sad.  “You look like a lost kitten.”

“Lion, surely,” muttered Jack, but he was unable to muster up the energy to be properly offended.  Then, once he’d eaten his breakfast, and the dim light and the warmth had soothed his aching head (and, he now realized, aching limbs…perhaps he did have a bit of a fever), he felt recovered enough to say, “How did you get here?  I really was about to go visit you.”

“Michael,” Jane answered, “is far too much of a mother hen for his own good.  He showed up at my door and said, ‘Enough is enough.’  And he had a car bring me here.”

“And you _went_?” Jack said, instead of what he thought, which was, ‘if that’s what I look like when I pout no wonder everyone keeps comparing me to a kitten’ and ‘Jane is so pretty.  Even with the red nose.’ and ‘I wonder if she’d be up for a cuddle’.

“Of course I didn’t go,” Jane answered.  Jack stared at her.  Then he reached out a finger and poked her gently on the shoulder, just to be certain of things.  Jane wrinkled her nose.  “Well, obviously I did go…in the end.  He threatened to tell you about…” and then, quite abruptly and in the middle of her own sentence, “You know, Jack, I really am quite sleepy.”  And she cuddled up against him of her own accord, and Jack was so pleased he never got around to asking exactly what Michael had threatened.

Michael found them like that ten minutes later, when he came to collect the tray.  Both were curled into each other, and it would have been quite sweet except for the way Jane’s drippy nose was burrowed into Jack’s shoulder, and Jack, even asleep, kept coughing into her hair.

“Well, I guess they can’t get each other any more sick,” said Michael (which isn’t actually how germs work, but ultimately proved to be true).  And he resisted the urge to do a quick sketch but instead took away the tray and went back down and told Ellen “If either of them tries to do a runner, you have my permission to tie them to the bed.”  And then he went to work, because it was a work day (he had gotten permission to have the morning off, of course, but not the afternoon, though if Jane or Jack had proved to be worse than they’d seemed, he would have).

Jack had no intention of doing a runner when he got to cuddle sick Jane.  Jane had pretty much refused any of his attempts to take care of her before (under the theory that her cold was catching and, when it came down to it, just a cold), but now that he was already sick, she was perfectly happy to let him hold her and give her handkerchiefs.  She drew the line at him running up and down the stairs for food or drink.  At any rate, Ellen popped in so often with tea that they were both heartily sick of the substance quite quickly.

They did get to whisper together in the quiet (while they were awake anyway; and mostly to make secret plans to get around Ellen for something that wasn’t tea), and read to each other.  This didn’t work very well because Jane’s voice was almost gone, and talking made Jack’s cough worse, but they did their best and Jack still didn’t think he’d had a more pleasant time while sick.

The children came home from school and Ellen had intended to hide Jack and Jane’s presence from them under the theory that the children would disturb them and the two needed peace and quiet; that or it would upset the children.  Illness within the household tended to lead to nightmares among the children.  During the day, they could be reasonable and know very well it’s just a little illness…then at night they’d wake up crying that the ill person had died.  Michael hadn’t actually told them their aunt had a bad cold; they just thought she’d been busy or unwilling to traverse the rain.  So Ellen intended to keep the two patients hidden as long as possible.

That was rather ruined when the children ran into the house shouting, “Uncle Jack is here, Uncle Jack is here!”

She had forgotten about the bicycle left in the front of the house.  And of course Jack and Jane heard the children, and neither was so very sick that they didn’t respond by staggering out of bed to go and greet them.  Of course, if Jane had stopped to think, she would have remembered she was avoiding the children to avoid passing on her cold, but they’d caught her while she was sleeping so she had forgotten.  Jack, who had been sleeping too, woke up half convinced he must be well again after napping half the day away, and he held onto this delusion right up to the point that the stairs tried to move out from under his feet.

Luckily, between Jane (though she was somewhat unsteady herself) and the banister, they managed.

The children’s cries changed from ‘Uncle Jack’ to ‘Uncle Jack, Aunt Jane’ and Ellen threw up her hands in despair.

“Jack and Jane Banks, you get back into bed right this instance or so help me I will tie you down, see if I don’t!”  And she was terrifying enough that Jack didn’t even point out his last name wasn’t actually ‘Banks’, but meekly explained, “We only wanted to greet the children.”

“Oh, are you ill?” asked Annabel with a frown, and the children’s excitement died down.

“I’ve got a cold,” said Georgie.  “Is it my fault?  Teacher says colds are catching and I had to wash my hands a hundred times today.”

“I’m afraid _you_ caught _our_ cold,” Jane tried to explain, only she had to whisper and Jack started coughing from the effort of going downstairs so it’s doubtful if any of the children understood her.

“Back to bed, I say!” Ellen insisted.  So the two started back up the stairs again, much more slowly than they went down, and John and Annabel ran to help them up.  This created a funny sort of dance when the two patients, not wanting to introduce their illness to the entire household, tried to dodge them.

“We’ll make you ill,” Jane whispered, much more successfully this time.

“We’ll wash our hands after,” John answered.  “We know all about that.  Come along, Aunt Jane.  Are you in the guest room?”

“You can hold onto my shoulder, Uncle Jack,” Annabel added.  Georgie, it must be confessed, probably hindered their efforts more than helped when he tried pushing Jack from behind and almost caused all of them to fall, but they made it in the end.

There was some confusion at the top of the stairs, when Jack didn’t actually remember which door they’d come from and tried to go to the nursery, and John tried to lead his aunt to the guestroom.

“Actually, we’re in Michael’s room,” Jane had to explain.  Which alarmed Jack, who hadn’t realized this up to that point.  In the end the children got them sorted, in part because the two were too sick to put up much defiance (Jack was alarmed a second time when he remembered it wasn’t really proper for Jack and Jane to share a bed and what would the children think?  What they thought was, easier to take care of them together.)

“You feel awfully warm, Uncle Jack,” Annabel remarked as she tucked him in.

“I’m fine,” said Jack.  “It’s just a bit of a cough.”  Only when the thermometer was fetched, it turned out he now had a temperature of almost 102.  Jane’s was slightly better at just past 100.

“It was probably all that exertion, up and down the stairs,” Ellen decided.  “But if it doesn’t go down, we’ll call back the doctor.”

“But Aunt Jane exerted just as much, and hers isn’t that high,” Georgie pointed out, confused.  And then he sneezed and didn’t quite get his hand up in time and Ellen decided that was enough visiting and shooed everyone out.

“I really don’t mind,” Jack tried to say, only he coughed instead, and it was just as well because five minutes later he’d fallen asleep again.  Jane stayed awake this time, gently stroking his hair and frowning slightly.  She could feel his warmth against her hand, and she wanted to hold him, but she felt too hot to do it comfortably.  In fact, she didn’t want any of her blankets and wished a bit that she could open the window.  The only thing stopping her was that Jack might get cold.  Despite his heat, she could feel him shivering.

“Poor Jack,” she whispered.  “I did tell you to stay away.”  And she gently kissed his forehead, then lay herself more comfortably and closed her eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

Michael left work rather later than usual to make up for his absent morning hours.  This was unfortunate, as he had a couple of stops to make before coming home, and he’d forgotten to call ahead to warn he was going to be late.

In fact, it didn’t cross his mind that he should have done so until he was at his door, at which point it was far too late.  So he was a bit worried what he’d walk into; Ellen scolding him for not calling, the children worried (and normally his children weren’t alarmists, but with sick people in the house, they were bound to jump to worst case scenarios) or worse, to find Jack and Jane had decided they’d had enough of bed rest and run off and he’d have to chase them down.  That, at least, seemed unlikely as Jack’s bicycle was still there.  But Jack had been rather out of it that morning and could easily have run off without it, just as Michael occasionally forgot his hat or briefcase.

What he found, upon entering his house, was the quietest of houses he’d ever visited.  It was so quiet, in fact, that he had to stop himself from stepping back outside to check he’d gone in the right one, never mind that he’d had to push past Jack’s bicycle to get in.

“Welcome home,” whispered his children, and they tiptoed while they took his coat and hat.

“What is this?” Michael said, only to receive three ‘shhh’s.

“Uncle Jack and Aunt Jane are resting,” Georgie whispered, or at least attempted to whisper; at least he was quieter than shouting.  So Michael went up the stairs to check, a bit worried in spite of himself, especially when all Ellen said when she saw him was, “Oh, is that for Jack and Jane?” in a not at all scolding voice as she took his shopping bag.  In fact, she sounded pleased.

When he opened his bedroom door a crack, he found his room mostly quiet and still except for the sounds of two somewhat sick people breathing. Jack, he discovered, was fast asleep, his face still too pale and his hair sticking up at odd angles.

At first glace, Jane looked asleep too, only curled on top of the covers instead of under, with one hand resting on Jack’s chest and her face turned towards him.  Only, as Michael stepped into the room, a very wide awake Jane turned her head towards him, and to Michael’s shock she seemed to be crying.

“Jane?” he said, in a whisper of course, and she sat up and hugged her knees to herself and looked so utterly miserable that it must be confessed it broke Michael’s heart to see it.  He moved swiftly to her side of the bed, reaching out a hand to test her temperature.  She was too warm, especially to a man who’d just been outside, but not alarmingly so.

“I’m okay,” she whispered, this time the whisper having less to do with her lost voice and more her desire to not disturb the other occupant of the bed.

“You’re not,” answered Michael, because clearly she wasn’t.  “Are you feeling worse?  Or is it Jack?  Do I need to call the doctor back?”

“No,” whispered Jane.  “We’re fine.  Jack’s fever went up for a bit but it’s lower now.  It isn’t that it’s…I suppose I’m just run down and…and this was _their_ bed, and now I’m sick and _Jack_ is sick and…”

“I didn’t think,” said Michael a bit aghast.  Then, “It isn’t _really_ their bed, you know.  I couldn’t, after…even if I wanted to it was burned.”

“I know,” said Jane, “But it _is_ their room, and…don’t mind me, it’s the illness.  It’s making me all silly.”

“It’s not silly in the slightest,” Michael insisted, and then, “You can have the guest bed.  It’s smaller, but I imagine you’ll want to stay with Jack…” and here, he was all little brother in his knowing grin as he nudged his sister’s shoulder.

“No, don’t make Jack move,” said Jane.  “We’re fine.  I’m fine.  I know it’s not the same thing.  I just…I wish Jack hadn’t caught my cold after all.”

“Jus’ as likely Angus’s cold.  Or one o’ th’others,” said a sleep addled voice that wasn’t Michael’s.  It seemed, despite their attempt at whispers, they’d woken Jack up after all.  “Could be _you_ got _my_ cold.  Never know.  Anyway, ‘s the pleasure’s fault.”

“The what’s fault?” Jane asked, giggling a little in spite of herself at how cute a half-awake Jack looked, with his hair sticking everywhere and his words barely coherent.

“Pleasure and pain; rain,” Jack explained.  “’s leerie speak.”  And then, suddenly much more awake, he said, “What time is it?  I have to go!”

“You need to do nothing of the kind,” Michael answered firmly, and it said a lot about the state Jack was in that, despite his determination to leap out of bed, all it took was one firm push from Michael to have him lying back again.

“No, I really do,” Jack tried to explain.  “The lamps have to be lit.”

“And they will be,” said Michael.  “I stopped off by your place on the way home from work.  I was told to tell you ‘thought so.  Tell Jackie boy to mind the cuckoo and we’ll see to tripping the lights’.”  And hearing Michael trying to talk like a leerie was so funny that all three of them broke down into giggles.  “And,” Michael added, when he could, “I’ve no idea what I just said, but I imagine they want to see you well again.”

He didn’t mention that the side trip had caused him to have to do his shopping twice; it was no wonder Jack had come down sick considering his friends weren’t much better.  He’d had half a mind to drag the lot of them to his house, but he knew that most of them, while a bit miserable, were not properly sick (yet) and someone had to light the lamps or they’d all be out of a job, so in the end he ‘forgot’ the bag with medicine and nourishing foods he’d intended for Jack and Jane.  And one of the leeries whose worst ailment seemed to be a red nose had run after to tell him he’d left it.

“Did I forget my bag?” asked Michael.  “Oh well, it’s rather heavy and I’m a bit tired this evening.  You had better keep it.”  Which had left the young leerie looking rather confused, and Michael looking like a bit of an absent minded fool, as well as having to redo the shopping when he was already on a somewhat tight budget, but not nearly as tight as it used to be before his promotion at the bank, before he knew Jack.  And Michael never minded looking a bit of a fool.

Michael didn’t tell Jack any of this, because knowing Jack he’d feel obligated to pay Michael back somehow, and if Michael’s budget was tight he didn’t want to imagine what Jack’s budget looked like.  It was enough to make Jack understand that his lights were being taken care of.  So Jack allowed himself to be pushed back down into his pillows, and Jane was smiling again, even if her eyes were still a bit shimmery and crying hadn’t helped her sinuses in the least.

“Cuckoo clock,” Jack said as Michael was just deciding the two were settled and no one would have to sit on Jack and Jane wasn’t so upset that they had to change rooms right that instant.  This random statement would have been a bit alarming (and in fact Jane did reach over to try to check Jack’s temperature again, ignoring the fact that she had a bit of a fever herself and was the worst person to guess someone else’s) except Jack followed this up after a moment with, “Means doc.  Angus wants me to mind the doc.  Should mind the doc himself.  He’s been sneezing ‘alf th’ week.”

“Well, do mind the cuckoo and get some rest, then,” Michael said, which got a sleepy sort of grin from Jack, and then Michael did leave them to go back down the stairs.

Downstairs, the unnatural quiet was grating against Michael’s nerves.  Ellen was in the kitchen, preparing a broth and John was helping her while Annabel was doing homework and keeping an eye on Georgie, who appeared to be drawing.

“Do you think Aunt Jane and Uncle Jack will like it?” Michael heard Georgie ask in his normal excited voice.  To which his sister said, “Not so loud, Georgie.  And of course they will.”

“I doubt very much that a tiny bit of noise all the way down here will disturb anyone,” said Michael, who was beginning to feel like his house was full of whispers.  And whispers reminded him of another time when everyone was too quiet and, well, a bit of noise wouldn’t hurt them even if the children did get too loud.

“But Aunt Jane and Uncle Jack are resting,” Annabel tried to protest, and then, just in case her father somehow didn’t know, “They’re ill.”

“Only a little tiny bit ill,” Michael assured them.  “Little more than a bad cold.  The doctor said as much when he examined them this morning.”  Which was mostly true; the doctor had warned that it could get much worse, especially if the two continued to run themselves ragged in all kinds of weather, but they didn’t seem to have any of the more alarming sorts of illnesses out there and they weren’t running themselves ragged anymore anyway, so they’d be fine.  Almost surely.

At any rate, he could actually see some of the tension leaving Annabel at his pronouncement, and when Georgie leapt up to loudly share his get well drawing with his father and sister, no more was said about being silent.

Up the stairs, Jack lay in bed and stared out the window at the slowly darkening sky and felt utterly lazy and a bit unwell and a bit content.  Then he turned his head to look at Jane, who was looking at him, and her eyes were still shining and her nose was still red.

“Shall we change rooms?” Jack asked, studying her expression carefully.  The look he got in return was not a person putting on a brave face, as he feared she would.  Instead she looked fond, then lay back next to him, tucking her head against his chest.

“So you heard all that?” she asked as he automatically put his arms around her, his heartbeat speeding up as he lay utterly still, in case a sudden movement caused her to move away.

“What?” he asked distractedly, and she sort of shifted her head like she was trying to give him a look, but couldn’t quite manage from her angle so she gave up.  Then he stopped concentrating on how she felt in his arms and remembered her question.  “Oh…yes.  I suppose I did.  I could tell it was bothering you; being sick.”

“Did you know I caught it first?  The flu, I mean, that awful year,” Jane said, and Jack tightened his hold on her without quite meaning to.  “They must have gotten it from me.”

“Or from a hundred other people,” Jack pointed out.  Jane didn’t answer for the longest time, and Jack held her in his arms and wondered if there was anything in the world he could say to make things right.  He couldn’t bring back her parents, any more than she could bring back _his_ , but if there was anything at all to be done, he’d do it in an instant.

“At the time,” said Jane, “I wished for Mary Poppins.  I was old enough that I half thought the magic were a dream but…I just knew she’d make things better.  I realize now, of course, she isn’t…she _is_ magical but she isn’t…she isn’t God.  I mean, she wouldn’t just let my parents…or Michael’s wife…not if she could stop it.”

“The first time I met her, my mama had been dead for a year,” Jack said.  “And do you know, I don’t think I ever even wondered why she didn’t come sooner.  Well, I know why she’d come in the first place.  I wrote a letter…not to her; I didn’t know she was even in the world.  Just…I was writing to the mayor, if you can believe.”

“We wrote a letter, too,” Jane said with a bit of a laugh that was just on the edge of being a sob.  It was that sort of conversation, somewhere in-between sorrow and happy memories.  Then, after a moment, “Do you think, if I had written that letter…”

“Did Annabel or John or Georgie write a letter?” Jack asked.

“No…I suppose not.  How do you think she knew to come?”

“I think she keeps an eye on all of us,” said Jack.  “And she comes when she’s needed.  _Really_ needed, not just wanted.  But I think it helps to ask.”

“If I had asked…” Jane said, but it sounded more like it was to herself than to Jack.  Jack answered anyway.

“Would it have helped…her being there?”

“I certainly thought so at the time,” said Jane.  “But…if she couldn’t stop the dying, and she was there with us…I don’t know.  It was hard but…in some ways it made me…me.  Strong, independent…”

“Kind,” Jack offered, when she had trailed off, “passionate, beautiful…”

“Jack!” she protested, but he could hear the smile in her voice, even in a hoarse whisper.

“So you’re saying you didn’t need a nanny to hold your hand,” said Jack.

“I suppose not,” she answered.  “Though I could have used a friend.”

Jack was silent for a moment, then said, “I wish I knew you then.  Properly, I mean, not just to wave to.” 

Then, of course, their sweet quiet moment was broken when Jack started coughing.  And Jane sneezed, and they had to remember why they were lying in bed together.  Jack still kept one arm tucked around Jane, the other being used to try and suppress his coughs and Jane, it must be admitted, used the blanket as her handkerchief instead of trying to seek out a clean one.

Once they had recovered somewhat from their latest fight against their germs, Jane snuggled down again against Jack and said, “Tell me about it.  Your first time.”

“Uh…” said Jack, sounding just the slightest bit confused.

“With Mary Poppins,” Jane explained.  “When you wrote the mayor.”

“Oh…right,” said Jack.  “Well, I was living in a cottage…that is…you might call it a sort of orphanage out in the country.  And the place was run, I am quite certain, by a witch.”

“You lived in the country?  I thought you always lived in London!” said Jane with some surprise.

“I told you the place was run by a witch and _that’s_ the part you find surprising?”

“Oh fine, go on.  So it was run by a witch.  The good kind, or the bad kind?”

“The very wicked kind. The worst.”

And he told the story as though it were a sort of fairytale, only having to pause every once in a while to cough, and the shadows outside lengthened, and somewhere on the streets below, lanterns were being lit one by one.

“Hold on,” Jack said, right in the middle of one of the funnier parts, and to Jane’s annoyance he pulled away from her and hopped out of bed.

“Jack, where are you going?  What did the mayor say?  Jack!”

“I’ve always wondered what it was like at this end,” Jack said, and he went to the window and looked down, and after a moment of waiting, he waved his hand.  “Hello Freddie,” he said, though the leerie on the street below had no way of hearing him.  Then Jack, still smiling, turned and half staggered back to the bed, finding the room a bit more unsteady than he was expecting, as though he were trying to walk across the deck to a ship.

Jane had clearly forgiven him the interruption, for she was smiling fondly.

Unfortunately for Jack, before he quite made it back to the bed, the door opened and Michael and the children poured in, each carrying a part of the two invalids’ supper in their hands.

“Uncle Jack!” said Annabel.  “What are you doing out of bed?”  Then Georgie, who had only been trusted with the napkins, helpfully half pushed him back into his place while everyone else started to arrange their offerings.  Michael had the big tray, of course, and John and Annabel each had a bowl that they carried quite carefully.

“What’s all this?” Jack said instead of defending himself.  “I’m sure we could have made it down the stairs.”

“Well, what’s the point of being sick, if you don’t get to eat in bed?” John asked.

“It’s like a picnic!” said Georgie as he unfolded each napkin with careful diligence.  “In bed!”

“It’s only a picnic if you have your food, too,” Jane pointed out.  The children looked quite intrigued by this and Michael gave his sister a very brotherly sort of look of annoyance, to which Jane managed to look all too pleased with herself.

“When everyone is well we’ll all go on a proper picnic in the park,” Michael said quickly, before any of the children could make a dash for the cutlery.

“Look Uncle Jack and Aunt Jane,” Georgie said, “I made you a picture!  It’s your wedding!  Annabel told me what it looks like, and it sounded nice, so I drew it.”

Now it was Michael’s turn to look innocent and pleased with himself while his sister gave him a _look_.  Jack simply looked a bit dazed.

“They’re turning all red,” whispered Georgie then, with some alarm, towards his siblings.  “Does that mean they’re getting iller?  Don’t they like my drawing?”

“It’s a wonderful drawing,” his aunt said quickly.  “Oh look, soup.  We should eat that while it’s hot.”

“I suppose we’d better eat our own meal,” said Michael, pulling his children away.  “Hands washed, everyone.”

Left alone with their food, Jane poked at Jack.  “Jack?” she asked.  “Did Georgie break you?”

And then Jack looked at her, sitting next to him in Michael’s bed, and began to giggle.  And Jane began to giggle.  And they ate their soup.

Then, quite a bit later, after Michael had come back for the tray and the children to say goodnight (and Jack felt just a bit guilty because he was in Michael’s bed) and they were left in the dark with strict orders to go back to sleep, Jane’s voice was in Jack’s ear, which was nice, but her tone was a bit scolding, which was not.

“Jack?”

“Yes?”

“What did the mayor say?” 

So Jack smiled in the dark and finished the story.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered calling the story ended now, and changing it to two chapters, this seemed like such a good leave off place...but I did have a bit more planned in my head so...why not. Final chapter may be a while in coming though. Or on the short side. Seriously, I'm not usually this quick in churning out new stories or chapters...I guess the movie may have slightly gotten inside my head.
> 
> Also, for those who were secretly hoping that Jack would get sicker, I might be considering a sort of connected story to this one for the Lost and Found series. Like, maybe when I said Jack had a relapse and scared them all, I wasn't referring to his trip to where the lost things go. Maybe.
> 
> I might be developing a theme here for hurting Jack in all my works, just a tiny bit. But at least he gets cuddles?


	3. Chapter 3

By roughly ten o’clock, the entire house was silent and still as all occupants drifted off to sleep, some more fitfully than others.

At around three in the morning, the quiet of the house was quite rudely intruded upon when Jack opened his eyes and discovered very large eyes located about an inch away from his.

Naturally this would startle anyone, but Jack had opened his eyes in the first place because of a rather unpleasant dream in which an owl had decided he was its chick and was trying to sit on his chest.  And the owl was too warm and too heavy and was half smothering him and, as sometimes happened in dreams, gave off a sort of ‘wrong’ vibe (not at all the sort of vibe that real owls gave Jack) and unsettled him.  So startling out of a dream involving a large eyed bird, to see large eyes quite close to him in the dark, did not make for a quiet awakening.

In fact he cried out, though not loudly as his voice, by that point, was almost as hoarse as Jane’s, but he also startled up, banged his head against the intruder, knocked something off the nightstand with his flailing arm that responded by breaking against the floor (in fact, it later proved to be a picture frame and he felt horrible about it when he realized, but the picture inside of Michael and Kate turned out to be unharmed).  This was naturally quite loud.  And Jane startled awake, rolled away from the commotion in her half-awake confusion and alarm, and promptly fell out of the bed entirely with quite a loud thump.  And the intruder with the large eyes was just as startled as anyone, and he fell backwards (thankfully not on the broken picture frame) and his voice when he cried out wasn’t hindered by hoarseness.

So all in all, it wasn’t long before pretty much every inhabitant of the house ran into the room in various states of wakefulness.  Ellen, for instance, was sensible enough to don her robe and slippers and grab an electric torch but Annabel only thought to grab her robe, John was wearing Annabel’s slippers, and Michael had neither robe nor even socks but was also the fastest and the quickest to understand what had happened once he got the lights on.

“Is everyone okay?” he asked, first picking up Georgie (who of course was the large-eyed intruder) and then, having seen his son standing on his feet, hurrying around the side of his bed to where Jane was pulling herself up.

“Fine, I’m fine,” Jane said, her voice actually a bit improved to what it had been, but Michael, who had taken her half in his arms to help her up, frowned anyway.

“I think your fever has risen again,” he said.

“’s that why the owl was so hot?” Jack whispered, then coughed roughly, and he had a definite wheeze to his breathing.

“What owl?” asked John, as he blinked his eyes a lot.

“There was an owl,” Jack explained vaguely, “Was sitting on my chest.  And I opened my eyes and saw it, only was Georgie.”

“I dreamed you had a big wedding at the church, only after you had to go to lie in a grave because you were dead,” Georgie said solemnly while absently rubbing at his forehead where Jack’s head had hit it.  “So I came to make sure you hadn’t gone to heaven while I was sleeping.”

“Oh, I _knew_ there’d be nightmares to come of this,” Ellen said.  “I’ll go fetch the thermometer and put the kettle on.”

“You said it was only a little illness,” Annabel said, just a hint of accusation in her voice.  Michael opened his mouth to explain, started to yawn instead, then sneezed in the middle of the yawn.  He looked so surprised by this that in most any other situation everyone would have laughed.  It wasn’t the sort of night for laughter though, and instead it brought frowns to everyone’s faces.

“You’ve caught my cold now,” said Georgie, sounding quite miserable.  “I’ve given it to everyone.”

“ _You_ caught _our_ cold,” Jane tried to explain again, but Ellen appeared again with remarkable alacrity and before she could say any more on the matter she had a thermometer stuffed in her mouth.

Jack, who would normally be among the first to try and reassure the children, instead sat up silently against the headboard to the bed and looked towards her with a worried sort of frown, occasionally coughing into his sleeve and still breathing all too audibly to be healthy.  Michael did try to add his own opinion on the matter, then sneezed three times in a row, and desperately hoped he _did_ just have Georgie’s cold and that he wasn’t about to be as sick as Jane and Jack.

“101.2,” was the end result of Jane’s fever, which was certainly not what anyone had hoped for, but not so high that it was necessary to call for the doctor right in that moment.

“Ugh,” was what Jane said to Ellen’s reading, and then, seeing as Jack didn’t look much better (and sounded rather worse) Ellen threatened to try him next (after the thermometer was properly washed, of course).

“I’m fine,” Jack tried to say, not liking the idea of holding the thing under his tongue when it was easiest to breathe through his mouth and he _knew_ he’d cough and all in all, it wouldn’t go well.  And he didn’t think he had much of a temperature; it was Jane who was the smothering hot owl.

Perhaps saying that last bit out loud was not the best idea in avoiding having his temperature taken.

“I thought it was Georgie who was the owl,” John said, sounding a bit confused and still half asleep.  Anabel, by that point, had noticed the broken picture frame and was distracted by trying to pick up the pieces before someone stepped on glass.  And despite what every alarmed parent is convinced will happen when it comes to children around broken glass, she managed to do it without cutting herself as well.

“And don’t think you’re not next,” Ellen threatened Michael (who had managed to stop sneezing and must be confessed to have been trying to hold in laughter watching Jack trying to evade Ellen).  In fact, Jack managed to cough it out twice (on the bed, thankfully; the last thing they needed was a broken thermometer), and looked quite pleased with the ‘accident’, until Jane said, “Please, Jack, do try,” in a worried sort of croak.  So he did try…and still coughed, because there are things no one can control, but somehow he did have it long enough to get a reading.

“100.8,” Ellen tutted.

“Aunt Jane wins, then,” said Georgie, apparently over his upset and not quite catching onto what the temperatures meant.  “Because 101 is higher than 100.”

“It’s her s’made me warm,” Jack tried to say, his words barely legible between the hoarseness, the wheezing, and the way his eyes looked slightly glazed.

Michael, it should be noted, turned out to not have much of a fever at all but was only 98.9 degrees, and neither did the children or Ellen, as it was that sort of middle of the night and everyone tried the thermometer if only to put each other at ease that they weren’t sick.  In fact, Annabel was slightly warmer than expected too, at 99.1, but Georgie, who was the most obviously ill among the children, didn’t have a fever at all.

“I did say we’d all catch it in the end,” said Michael while he stared hard at Annabel for further signs of illness.

“I’ll fetch the medicine, shall I?” said Ellen, causing the children to instinctively shrink away even though they were fairly certain she meant for Aunt Jane and Uncle Jack and not for them.

Ellen was some time away this time, because she got downstairs to find the kitchen was nearly set on fire.  She had forgotten about the tea she was making and was only just in time to stop the near empty kettle from boiling away completely and burning up.  There was only enough left in the pot for half a mug.  The kettle was boiling hot enough that she prudently added a bit more and quickly had enough hot water for all of them.

It did mean she came up with the tea, which she somehow managed not to drop on the way, and forgot the medicine.

“Oh no,” moaned Jack when he saw the mugs, just as though it _were_ medicine of the worst kind, and he hid under his covers.  John went to fetch the forgotten medicine while Jane tried to coax Jack out and Michael tried not to start laughing again (and succeeded when he started sneezing instead).

All in all, it was close to four in the morning when the house settled down again.  And of course Michael didn’t sleep properly even then, constantly popping into his bedroom to make sure things hadn’t gone worse.  Which in turn left him with almost no sleep and a worse cold than he might have had.  Luckily, the next day was Saturday, and there was no school or work for anyone.  That also meant that, despite Michael’s intention to retake temperatures first thing, and call for the doctor if they remained high, he wound up sleeping in instead.

Jack woke up first.  He woke rather disorientated, saw the sunlight streaming in, and panicked that he’d overslept and left his lanterns lit all along his route.

So he jumped out of the bed, with a loud sort of thump and a bit of a cry, danced around trying to figure out where he was, and where his clothes were, and, in his half-awake confusion, thought the best way to get to the lantern he could see outside was through the window.

“Jack?” said Jane’s voice just as he got it open, and then, between the cool air and Jane, Jack remembered the truth of the matter.

“Sorry,” said Jack, a bit vaguely and not entirely sure what he was apologizing for.  He might well still have tried to go out (though likely more sensibly through the door) except in his more awake state he noticed what he hadn’t before; the lamp had already been turned down for the day.  Which made him feel vaguely guilty but also suddenly exhausted and he started back to bed only to miss a step somewhere and sat down on the floor.

The thumps and bumps were enough to wake Michael, who had an ear tuned for disturbances (a trick usually used to take care of his children), and of course then he realized he’d overslept, had a bit of confusion himself from being in the guest bed, and was already composing explanations to his boss over his lateness before he remembered it was Saturday.  Then of course he remembered _why_ he was in the guest bed, and that he’d heard thumps, and he went to check on Jack and Jane.

He found them both sitting on the floor, because of course Jane wasn’t going to just leave Jack there, and the window still open (and it was a rather chilly morning) and both stared up at Michael with identical lost looks of confusion, but at least Jack wasn’t coughing or wheezing anymore, and Jane wasn’t sniffling either.

“Let’s get you back to bed, then,” said Michael, deciding he didn’t need to know about the window or why they were sitting on the floor.  Only when he looked at the bed he found it a disgusting mess of damp sheets and crusty handkerchiefs and twisted blankets.

“On second thought,” said Michael, “Let’s change the sheets, and _then_ get you to bed.  Perhaps you would like to take turns with a bath as well?”  Because if that was the state of their bed, then they probably weren’t much better.

“That sounds lovely,” said Jane.  Jack sort of stared at Michael rather worryingly, as though he weren’t entirely sure what a bath was, but then spoke perfectly coherently to say, “I haven’t a change of clothes.”

“You can borrow more of mine,” said Michael, and in his head he kicked himself for not thinking to ask for Jack’s clothes when he had stopped by his place.

“Oh good, you’re up,” said Ellen from the doorway while holding a tray with two cups of the dreaded tea and the thermometer placed ominously between.  Towards Michael, she said, “You can help bring up their breakfast.”

“How?” Michael muttered, not in question of how he was to bring up Jane and Jack’s breakfast, but in response to how awake and put together Ellen looked that morning.

“Oh, when you get to be as old as me you get quite set in your schedule, young man,” Ellen said, sounding ridiculously cheerful for the early morning hour.  “Well?  What are you two doing on the floor?  And the window open!  We’ll all catch our deaths!”

Under normal circumstances, Jack was quite brave, and he would throw himself between Jane and danger.  In the current circumstances, he half hid behind Jane and said, “Women and children first!”

No one, including Jack, was entirely sure what he meant by that.  Jane, also under normal circumstances, would protect Jack with every fiber of her being.  This time, however, she seized onto his words and used them to save herself.

“Right, I’ll just take my bath first then, shall I?”  And she looked entirely unrepentant in the face of Jack’s betrayed, wounded look, which Michael thought quite a feat because _he_ felt a bit guilty from that look and it had nothing to do with him.

Michael went to fetch the breakfast and so missed most of the drama that followed.  In fact, it must be confessed he took his time, making sure every dish was settled just right, and added a few extra napkins before slowly and carefuly carrying it all up.

When he reentered his bedroom, he found the window closed, Jack, in an adorable sulk that could well rival Michael’s children, sitting in the chair by the window with the thermometer stuffed in his mouth, and Ellen busily stripping the bed.  Jane was no longer in the room, presumably making good on her desire for a bath.

“Here we go,” said Michael as he settled the breakfast things on the small table by Jack.  He got a grumpy sort of glare for his efforts.  Michael didn’t think he’d ever seen Jack look so grumpy in all the time he knew him, in fact, and had a hard time not laughing in response.

“Well, I suppose that’s been long enough,” Ellen decided, suddenly at their side as she plucked the thermometer from Jack.  She squinted at it for a long moment.

“Well?” Michael asked at last.  “Do I need to fetch the doctor or an ambulance?”

“99.3,” she announced, glaring at the thermometer as though it displeased her for actually daring to suggest Jack’s fever had gone down to almost nothing.  Then, rather ominously, she added, “But morning temperatures are always low.  It’s the afternoon and nights we have to watch for.”

“Told you I was better this morning,” Jack said.  “I should do my own lights this evening.”

“We’ll see,” Michael said, an answer known by parents everywhere.  And like children everywhere, Jack seemed to sense Michael really meant, ‘absolutely not,’ because he scowled darkly at him.  Michael’s fingers twitched to sketch that look, if only for later proof that Jack can, on occasion, be just as snappish as the rest of them.

“And how is Jane?” Michael asked, somehow feeling more cheerful, the more Jack scowled.  There was something vaguely satisfying in being cheerful when others are not.

“She ran off before I could check hers,” Ellen answered, clearly not pleased.  “And doubtless she’s taking a boiling hot bath, no matter that I warned her to use cool water, and she’ll bring her fever to something dangerous!”

Michael did not take Ellen’s dire pronouncement particularly seriously, but just raised an eyebrow.  Jack stopped scowling at his breakfast to look towards the door with some worry.

“And you!” Ellen said, making both men jump, but it was to Jack that she spoke.  “Why aren’t you eating your lovely, wholesome food?  How are you to get well if you don’t keep strong?”

“I was waiting on Jane,” Jack answered.  “It’s polite to wait on a lady.”

“Hmph,” Ellen answered, but she looked pleased by the answer and only said, “Well, it’s better hot,” and didn’t keep at him to eat it.

“I thought ‘hot’ was to be avoided as it would raise their fevers to a dangerous degree?” Michael said, which he thought quite clever until it put all of Ellen’s attention on him, and then he felt rather the opposite.

“Still have your sniffles, I see,” she said.  “And you look a bit flushed.  Let’s just see what sort of fever you’ve managed to get!”

Only she was obliged first to go and wash the thermometer, and Michael prudently ran off to check on his children.  They continued to sleep.  Annabel’s forehead, when checked, was not particularly warm, and neither was John or Georgies’.

In the end, it turned out that no one in the house had much of a fever that morning (Jane did in fact take a scalding hot bath, but somehow this didn’t have the dire consequences that Ellen had predicted) and the sheets on beds got changed, and Michael managed to find something for Jack to wear that would be comfortable to lie around in, and the children (when they finally woke) found it funny to sleep in half the morning.

It was a very quiet sort of day.  Michael sketched, mostly all the sketches he’d wanted to make of Jane and Jack, and Georgie drew another get well picture, this time of an owl for Jack, and the other children drew or read and all in all behaved marvelously considering they were all made to stay quiet indoors when the weather was finally showing a bit of sunshine and it was a Saturday.

And no one had to sit on Jack when it came close to time for him to light the lamps (as Ellen had predicted, his fever actually had gone up in the afternoon, but only very slightly), but only because Jane told him that if _he_ was well enough to go out, then so was _she_ , and she would go to hand out flyers for SPRUCE.  And Jack was so horrified by the idea of her going out when she was only just getting better that he had to concede to her point and laugh.

“But I do have to get back to work tomorrow,” Jack added, with a determined sort of look in his face.  “It’s not fair to the others; they all have colds too and it’s hard on them.”

“Alright,” said Michael, ignoring his the way his sister was now glaring at him with an alarmingly murderous expression.  He had had that glare in his direction often enough to be near immune anyway.  Then he added, “I’ll just go tell the other leeries that you’re _almost_ better but you think you need to do your job.  I’m sure they’ll appreciate your work ethic.”

To which Jack had to huff and cross his arms, because he knew perfectly well that if Michael went to his friends and said exactly that then his friends were likely to sit on Jack rather than let him do his fair share of the work.

Michael clearly knew it too, because he smiled, and Jane stopped trying to murder him with her eyes and actually looked appreciative instead.  But then Michael grew more serious again and felt the need to say, “It might be just a cold, Jack, but it could get so much worse.  I don’t want to keep you from your job or helping out your friends but…just imagine Jane in your place.  Would you want her to go out the very day after she got over being sick?  All I’m asking is that you wait until you’re fever is completely gone; and for a full day, mind.”

And he didn’t add that he was glad Jack was there sick too, and not just because that would be a horrible thing to say to someone, but he was.  If it had just been Jane sick, they really would have had to sit on her to make her stay in bed until she was fully well.  But Jane wouldn’t go out if she thought it meant Jack would before he was ready…and Jack would stay for Jane.

They really did deserve each other.

And all in all, they actually stayed in Michael’s house, warm and dry and resting, for four more days, despite being only mildly sick for the final two.  Then they stayed an extra two while still going out for their respective work, but that was more because they felt the need to return the favor.

“I take it all back,” Michael grumbled as Jack and Jane carefully tucked him into his bed (they had the guest room).  “You were fine to go to work and so am I.”

“It’s only until your fever has been gone for a full day,” Jack said, far too cheerfully.  “Now, drink your tea.”

And because Michael was a sensible grown man and father, he did not throw his tea at Jack but sipped it slowly, and allowed that its heat did feel rather good on his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There might be a fourth chapter I've been considering (if only because I felt I really should include the 'health' part of the title), but I've no idea if I'll ever actually get around to writing it, so I'm leaving this as complete for now while I try to finish my other WIP with young Jack. I try not to do too many WIPs at the same time. But really, I did want to at least slightly explore the fact that Jack and Jane are about to go from being bed-mates back to living in different parts of town. Well, maybe if I don't manage a fourth chapter, I can tackle that in its own story. But little Jack's story first.


End file.
